Report Recommends Very Local Emissions Monitoring, and Lots of It

A report released today from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) recommends that California’s air monitoring agencies start using available technology to measure local air quality, especially where people live close to facilities that emit harmful pollutants.

But those don’t measure local emissions; the data they collect informs regionwide emission reduction plans. Instead, says the EDF report, it’s time to begin using newer, cheaper, and readily available technology to measure emissions at their source—which is frequently right where people live.

According to Timothy O’Connor, one of the report’s authors, there are 54,000 active oil and gas wells in California—many in the Central Valley and many more in the L.A. basin—and not one of them currently monitors the emissions it produces. Hundreds of thousands of people live within a half mile of these facilities, many of them literally next door to them.

EDF, and the report’s authors, are concerned that in implementing A.B. 617, CARB is going too slowly. “They’re in the process of identifying what sites they want to monitor, and planning to deploy monitoring on a short-term basis,” said O’Connor. “But that’s what California has been doing for years: deploying monitors for a short period. We’re talking about installing monitors permanently.”

Permanent, high quality monitors can accurately measure not just methane but benzene and volatile organic compounds and other harmful pollutants 24-7, every day of the year. “These operations do not operate at a steady pace,” said O’Connor, “They may only emit for only a few months a year, or when there’s a problem [like a leak]. But that’s when people are exposed,” he said.

“We think these technologies can be deployed ubiquitously, and at a low enough cost to make it viable.”

“We do know that there are some limitations to rapid scale deployment,” said O’Connor. “There would be supply chain problems, and it would cost resources. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start.” He pointed out that the more the technology is tested and developed, the more costs will come down. “They can deliver data in the field right now. The way to do it is to identify those communities where people live close to active production facilities—in California, over 11,000 people live within ten feet of an active well. We should start there, then move on to other sites as we learn more through the deployment process.”

The report goes into some detail about the types of monitors available, and under what circumstances different types can best be deployed. But it also calls for regulatory changes that aren’t in current law, including A.B. 617. For example, there is no requirement to include oil and gas sites in monitoring programs currently being developed

In the past the technology has been too expensive to put monitors everywhere, and it hasn’t been seen as a viable path to data gathering. Because of that, regulations didn’t focus on it, said O’Connor. But it’s time for that to change.

EDF’s report includes a list of recommendations for CARB and regional air quality management districts, including following L.A.’s lead by conducting an assessment of every producing facility in the state. In addition, they need to reevaluate current rules to update them in the light of better, cheaper monitoring technologies.

The state agency could require industries to install the monitors themselves. Or cities could follow the example of Los Angeles, which has begun imposing monitoring requirements through its land use control ordinance.

The data collected would need to be made available to the communities affected, and would inform plans to reduce and mitigate emissions. In addition, more and better monitoring data can help conduct health-risk assessments to improve regulatory decision-making, and provide solid data on appropriate buffer distances between facilities and communities.

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Many of the bill’s opponents at this hearing agree that there is no time to waste. They have been arguing that cap-and-trade is not working as intended—that its emission reductions are inadequate, and that in some cases the program has led to an increase in local emissions of other harmful pollutants by allowing industries to buy their way out of cleaning up their practices.

A recent CARB study found that people traveling by car, bus, and bike are exposed, generally, to similar levels of pollution, while the clear winners—those who breathe in the least black carbon, fine particle matter, and ultrafine particulates—are people traveling by electric-powered light rail.

Tomorrow, the South Coast Air Quality Management District will vote on a long-term regional clean air plan for the four counties under its jurisdiction. The plan as currently written contains few new mandatory measures to reduce pollution, instead focusing on voluntary measures and an ineffective, easily-gamed market-based pollution control mechanism.